The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Telkepe ELEANOR COGHILL Uppsala University 1 Introduction1 The dialect described here is a dialect of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by the Chaldean Catholic Christians of the town of Telkepe. It, and other Christian dialects, are known as sūraθ to their speakers. The Telkepe dialect is similar to the dialects of the surrounding Chaldean villages but dis- tinct enough to require a separate description. It is generally well understood by other Iraqi Chaldeans, because the təlkəpnāyə (natives of Telkepe) have formed a large part of Chaldean communities in the diaspora, in Baghdad and Detroit especially. Telkepe [təlkepə] (Arabic Tall Kayf) is a small town situated at the southern end of the Mosul Plain, about fifteen kilometres north of the city of Mosul. Historically Christian, it gained a sizable Muslim population as well. In 2014, with the surge of Islamic State in Iraq, Telkepe was captured and almost all its Christian inhabitants were forced to flee. Telkepe has since been recap- tured, but it remains to be seen how many will return. Telkepe is at the southern tip of a string of Neo-Aramaic–speaking villages leading north from Mosul: Telkepe, Baṭnāya, Baqopa, Tisqopa and Alqosh. To the south-east of Mosul there are three other Neo-Aramaic–speaking vil- lages: Karimlesh, Qaraqosh/Baghdede and Bariṭle/Barṭille. Most of the inhab- itants of these Neo-Aramaic–speaking villages belong to the Chaldean Cath- olic Church, but the inhabitants of Qaraqosh and Bariṭle adhere mainly to the Syriac Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church respectively. There are also Arabic and Kurdish speakers of various ethno-religious backgrounds living in the local area (especially Christians, Yezidis and Shabaks). 1 I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the speakers of the Telkepe dialect who have assisted me in my fieldwork, especially Amera Mattia-Marouf , Shawqi Talia, Mahir Awrahem, Haniya, Rania, Francis and Khalid. I would also like to thank Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, who helped me so much during my trips to Detroit. I also extend my thanks to the editors of this volume for their helpful suggestions. My deep gratitude goes especially to Geoffrey Khan, who introduced me to this wonderful language with its endless riches and who taught me to be a scholar. 234 The etymology of the name Telkepe is apparently ‘the mound of stones’ (Arab. tall ‘mound’, Aramaic kepə ‘stones’). This refers to the large archaeo- logical tell at the edge of the village. It has not been excavated due to the village cemetery situated on it. According to Wilmshurst, the earliest mention of Telkepe is in an inscrip- tion commemorating the restoration of a nearby monastery in 1403 “by the residents of Telkepe”, and he suggests that Telkepe “may well have been founded as late as the fourteenth century”.2 Of course, the tell points to an ancient habitation on the site; it is not known what the name was of the As- syrian settlement now hidden under the tell. Formerly adhering to the Church of the East, Telkepe was one of the first villages to unite with the Catholic Church.3 According to Wilmshurst, there were Catholic missionaries in Telkepe in the 17th century and there were a significant number of converts by the end of the century.4 By the beginning of the 19th century, those in union with Rome were in the majority. Already in the 19th century Telkepe was the largest Christian village in the plain of Mosul and many of the clergy of the Chaldean Church were its sons. Its prominence in the Chaldean Church continues to this day. In the late 19th century, it had two churches, the churches of Saint Cyriacus and of the Virgin Mary;5 within a few decades the number grew to six. There are also several shrines.6 Telkepe is notable for its history of emigration, and communities of təlkəpnāyə are now found in all the major cities of Iraq, as well as abroad, especially in Detroit, Michigan. In Iraq the təlkəpnāyə are prominent in the management of hotels, while in Detroit they have predominantly worked in the grocery business. Emigration to Detroit began in the early 20th century, and the təlkəpnāyə are the largest group in the huge Chaldean community there.7 Until recently there was little published specifically on the dialect of Telkepe, although there were two articles by Sabar with texts and grammatical notes.8 More generally on the dialects of the area of the Mosul Plain, there are several early works providing information.9 Unfortunately these do not distin- guish between the dialects of the area, which, though highly mutually intelli- gible, nevertheless are also clearly distinct in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. 2 Wilmshurst, 2000, p. 223. The inscription was noted by Sachau, 1883, p. 361. 3 Fiey, 1965, p. 360. 4 Wilmshurst, 2000, p. 224–226. 5 Sachau, 1883, p. 367. 6 Fiey, 1965, p. 369. 7 Sengstock, 2005. 8 Sabar, 1978 and Sabar, 1993. 9 Socin, 1882; Guidi, 1883; Sachau, 1895; Rhétoré, 1912; Maclean, 1895; Maclean, 1901. 235 More recently, studies have been published on individual dialects of this area, such as the varieties spoken in Tisqopa, Qaraqosh, Alqosh, Karimlesh and Bariṭle.10 In recent years I have also published a number of papers cover- ing individual aspects of the dialect of Telkepe.11 We are fortunate in having a number of manuscripts of religious poetry composed in the dialects of the Mosul Plain,12 with the earliest dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. These early texts clearly show dialectal features of this region, while also exhibiting archaic features now lost, as well as lacking certain analytic verbal constructions which presumably developed later. They are therefore a priceless source for the historical development of the NENA dialects of this region.13 This study of the dialect of Telkepe was carried out as part of the North- Eastern Neo-Aramaic Project at Cambridge University, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Most of the fieldwork on which it is based was carried out during two fieldwork trips to Detroit in 2004 and 2007. Some other interviews were conducted in London and Chicago in 2006, while fur- ther interviews were also carried out by telephone. This paper will focus on the basic phonology, morphology and lexicon of the dialect, rather than the syntax, on which I have published elsewhere and which will also be treated in a separate monograph.14 I have tried here to keep to the same structure as in my other paper-length dialect descriptions, for max- imum comparability.15 2 Phonology 2.1 Phonemic inventories 2.1.1 Consonants The inventory of consonant phonemes in the dialect of Telkepe is given in table 1. Note the IPA values for the following symbols: č [ʧ], j [ʤ], ž [ʒ] (as an allophone of š), y [j], ġ [ɣ], ḥ [ħ], ʿ [ʕ], ʾ [ʔ]. Other symbols have their IPA values. Apart from ḥ, consonants with a dot under are the emphatic (velarised/ 10 See Rubba, 1993a and Rubba, 1993b for Tisqopa; Khan, 2002 for Qaraqosh; Coghill, 2004, Coghill, 2005 and Coghill, forthcoming-b for Alqosh; Borghero, 2008 for Karimlesh; and Mole, 2015 for Bariṭle. 11 See Coghill, 2008; Coghill, 2009; Coghill, 2010a; Coghill, 2010b; Coghill, 2014; Coghill, 2015. 12 See e.g. Pennacchietti, 1990; Poizat, 1990; Poizat, 1993; Mengozzi, 2002a; Mengozzi, 2002b; Mengozzi, 2011. 13 For diachronic studies using these texts as sources, see Mengozzi, 2012; Coghill, 2010b, pp. 377–379; Coghill, 2016, especially pp. 234–239, 268–282. 14 See Coghill, 2010a; Coghill, 2010b; Coghill, 2014. 15 See Coghill, 2013 on Peshabur; Coghill, forthcoming-b on Alqosh. 236 Table 1. Consonant inventory dental - alveolar - Bilabial Labio Dental Alveolar Post Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Laryngeal Stops/affricates plain voiceless p t č k q ʾ voiced b d j g voiceless ṭ c ̣ emphatic voiced Fricatives plain voiceless f θ s š x ḥ h voiced (v) ð z ġ voiceless ṣ emphatic voiced ð ̣ Nasals m n Lateral approximant l Tap/trill plain r emphatic ṛ Approximants w y ʿ pharyngealised) versions of the undotted consonant; for instance, the symbol ð ̣ represents [ðˁ]. Unemphatic voiceless plosives are lightly aspirated, while emphatic or voiced stops are unaspirated: talθa [tʰɛlθæ] ‘the year before last’ ṭūṛå [tˤuːrˤɒ] ‘mountain’ dəx [dɘx] ‘how?’ Some phonemes are only found in loan-words, but are nevertheless common; for example /ð/̣ occurs in words from Arabic. On the other hand, /v/ is only attested in the Kurdish loan-word šivānå ‘shepherd’. Voiced plosives and fricatives are devoiced in word-final position: mez [meːs] ‘table’ (K. mêz), primuz [priːmus] ‘primus stove’. This devoicing also occurs in Alqosh, and is an areal feature also found in the Qəltu-Arabic dia- lects of Mosul and Anatolia, as well as Kurdish dialects.16 The voicing is pre- served when the word is followed by a suffix: mezā́ t [meˑzæːt] ‘tables’, primuzā́ t [priˑmuzæːt] ‘primus stoves’. 16 For the dialects of Mosul, see Jastrow, 1979, p. 41; for those of Anatolia, see Jastrow, 1978, p. 98; for Kurdish dialects, see Mackenzie, 1961, pp. 48–49. 237 2.1.2 Vowels There are nine vowel phonemes, five of them long and four short. The distinc- tion between long and short is not phonemic in all environments. The pho- nemes /o/, /e/, and /i/ are usually realised as long, but are not marked as such in order to minimise the number of diacritics. The vowel phonemes are: Long vowels: /i/ /e/ /ā/ /o/ /ū/ Short vowels: /ə/ /a/ /å/ /u/ The most common realisations of these vowels (in the environment of non- emphatic consonants) are shown below.